Page 34 of Highland Guard

It was not until she found herself out in the hall, the door shut securely behind her, that Annys began to be a little annoyed. If they were about to discuss Sir Adam or some trouble at Glencullaich she should be involved in the discussion. Then she shook aside that moment of pique. She had handed the problem of Glencullaich over to Harcourt and his men. It was unfair for her to now complain about how they went about it. If there was anything she truly needed to know or do as the lady of Glencullaich, Harcourt would tell her.

Although, she mused as she made her way back to the kitchens, it might not be a good idea to be alone with Harcourt for too long. Annys knew he had been working hard to seduce her into his bed. She also knew she was weakening fast. It was past time for her to come to a decision about Harcourt. Her heart and body yearned for him but she had to try to silence them and think clearly. If nothing else, if she bed down with him she wanted it to be her choice, a clear-headed, well-thought-out decision.

“The traitor is in the kitchen,” said Callum as he sat on the edge of Harcourt’s bed.

“Ye discovered which one is betraying us?” Harcourt wanted to leap from the bed to go confront the one who had given his son into the hands of his enemy, probably with sword in hand, and he was not sure the fact that it was a woman he was hunting would stop him from killing her.

“Nay yet, but ’tis one of the lassies who work in the kitchens. Three of them have some secret. The lass I play with is certain that two of them have a lover they meet with, one they dinnae want anyone to ken about. She isnae sure what young Minna is doing but doubts ’tis anything bad.”

“Annys’s kitchens are a true pit of sin from what ye say. Can ye trust your lass?”

“Aye,” Callum said without hesitation. “I havenae told her why I ask so much, but she isnae a fool and I think she has guessed my game. She quickly began to tell me anything and everything about each one who works there. Peg grew even more of a fount of information after Benet was taken. The shades of outrage within the kitchens was another way I have fixed my interests and suspicions on but three of them, although I do believe Minna is innocent of betrayal. ’Tis only her closely held secret that makes me wonder.”

“Ye didnae discover this all between here and the great hall. Why come to tell me right now? Did ye e’en get a bite to eat?”

“Peg was waiting for me just inside the door of the great hall to quietly say that she had thought long and hard on what I was trying to discover and it suddenly occurred to her that ’tis nay just the problems with Sir Adam that have me asking questions. She said she thinks I have decided the laird was killed and am looking for the killer. Seems someone might have overheard our talk of poison. She told me that only three women dealt with the laird’s food.”

“The three ye already watch?”

“Aye. Biddy, Minna, and Adie.”

“Do ye ken why it is the maids in the kitchens who are the only ones amongst who a traitor has emerged?”

“Aside from the fact that the easiest way to poison someone ye badly want dead is to get to him through his food?”

“Aye, aside from that.”

“Weel, they are nay watched verra closely, are they. They go where they want as long as the meal is done weel and on time.” Callum smiled faintly. “No one wishes to cause trouble for the ones who feed them. ’Tis also verra easy for one of them to slip in and out of the keep. There are always errands to run and supplies needed. No one questions what they are doing. The entrance to the bolt-hole is verra close at hand so it is easy to sneak into. Those two things alone were why I set after one of those lassies.”

“Have ye found who nay longer has the key to the bolt-hole?”

“Dunnie found his. Nicolas found his yet seems to think something isnae right about it. It works so it is the key. Or a key. Joan found hers. So, Nicolas and I are thinking it may have been his key, stolen, and used to have another made. I have also made certain that the place where the tunnel comes out is weel guarded, but not too obviously.”

“We need to find which one of them is the guilty one as quickly as we can. Sir Adam is preparing for something, I am certain of it, and we cannae have anyone here who is willing to help him,” said Harcourt.

Callum nodded and stood up. “I mean to follow each one of them. May e’en get Nicolas to help. First will be Minnie. I need to ken what her secret is before I can dismiss her as the traitor.”

Harcourt settled back against his pillows after Callum left. They were close, he could feel it. Ending Sir Adam’s ability to get information about them would be the first true victory they had gained. Most everything else they had done had been little more than successful acts of defense. More was needed.

He greeted Nicolas with relief when the man arrived. Although he would do his best not to do too much that might risk aggravating the healing wound in his leg, he had to get out of the bed he had been trapped in for a sennight. Laughing at Harcourt’s eagerness, Nicolas helped him dress. When the man handed him a walking stick, Harcourt swore but took it.

It did not take many steps for Harcourt to realize a week in bed sapped a man’s strength. He should have remembered that, he thought as he almost collapsed in the seat at the table in the great hall. A few drinks of ale, set before him by a freckle-faced maid, were enough to revive him and he was pleased when the others joined him. They needed to make plans because he could not shake free of the certainty that Sir Adam would soon attack Glencullaich in force.

Annys scowled at what remained in the spice cupboard. Either Maura, the cook, had been too caught up with the troubles they were suffering from to notice how low their supply was getting or was just old enough now to become forgetful. There had also been a lot of the villagers staying at the keep who had needed to be fed, although most of those had been able to return home by now. If their spices were not replenished soon they would all be eating some very bland food.

Realizing she had nothing to make a list of their needs with, Annys decided to go get some writing materials from the ledger room. If they were running out of something as important as spices they undoubtedly needed other things. She started out of the storeroom only to pause just inside the door to study the women there.

When she saw Biddy, a plump, fair-haired young woman who was one of the cook’s assistants, slyly tuck some bread into her apron, Annys stepped back a little into the shadows and kept her gaze fixed on the woman. Since Biddy had no desperate need for food, she had to wonder why the woman would steal some bread. It could be something as innocent as wanting to share some food with a lover, but Annys was still wary. The moment she had learned there was a traitor within the walls of Glencullaich, the number of people she trusted without question had dropped alarmingly. Annys wanted the traitor gone so that she could feel safe again within her own home.

Biddy told Maura she needed to get out of the hot kitchen for a while. Maura did not even look up from the work she was doing, just grunted in reply. The moment Biddy walked out, Maura began to mutter to herself, a long list of complaints about how often Biddy walked away from the work she was supposed to do. The fact that Biddy did not go out the door leading to the kitchen gardens was suspicious. Annys decided that was more than enough reason to follow the woman.

Biddy slunk her way to the door leading into the ledger room and Annys felt her suspicions grow stronger. One thing she did know about the woman was that Biddy could neither read nor do her numbers. There was nothing in the ledger room that could possibly be of interest to her except the door to the bolt-hole.

Annys waited outside the door, keeping close to the wall and using the shadows there to hide in. A moment later Biddy slipped out of the room, something the shape of a small book weighing down one of the pockets in her apron. Torn between rushing into the ledger room to see just what the woman had taken and following her to see if she went to meet with anyone, Annys finally picked the latter course of action.

When Biddy slipped into the small room meant for the lady of the keep to entertain her female friends, Annys’s heart sank into her boots. That was where the special, very secret bolt-hole was. She doubted David had confided that information to the cook’s assistant so Annys had to think that she had been spied on by the maid. Every so often she would check that bolt-hole to see if it needed any repair. It was just another part of her duties in the keep and it would probably have been easy enough for Biddy to see her do it or even overhear the occasional remark made to Joan after she had done the chore.

She waited outside the door a few moments and then slipped inside, working furiously on a reasonable excuse for being there if Biddy was still in there. No one was in the room and she sighed. There was only one way out of this small solar if one did not choose to use the door, and that was the bolt-hole David had made for a select few. It really did not matter how Biddy found out about it, only that she had. If the woman was just using it to meet a lover, it could be a forgivable crime, but Annys’s instinct told her it was far more than that.